We will be leaving in a few days. The Doodlebug, Steve and myself. Flying to CA with the intentions of adopting a baby girl. She is scheduled to be born by C section on the 22nd of June. All of the plans, the preparations and the tasks of our super busy summer and lives were suddenly put on hold. Alternate plans made, schedules re-done, money and travel related finances worked out. Lawyers obtained in CA and TN. Communications between different parties. All this for a yet unborn baby girl that we don’t even know for sure if we will be able to keep.
It feels very surreal. Wonderful but surreal. I’m typically not very good at this whole unknown thing. I like to make a plan. Back up plans. And then usually a couple of contingency theories just to even begin to feel safe. This time though, there is no back up plan. There is no plan B. It just will be what it is and we will either gain a daughter to our family or walk way having invested in the idea of a child that needs a family to love her. In the big scheme of things there really isn’t much of a risk factor. Except that there is…Because, you see, we want to adopt this baby. We want to raise her, to hold her, to care for her. That is what we desire. Disappointed desires can be a powerfully painful thing to walk through. Miscarriages were a practical life lesson in disappointed expectations. I’ve walked that road before and know how painful it can be if the focus is on my dreams, my desires and my “needs”.
Right in the middle of our “Baby News” as I’ve come to call it one of my dearest friends got engaged! A collision of baby and wedding plans have been burbling around ever since.
Been doing a lot of thinking about love as a result of these two life themes. Love of a man and a woman, choosing to dedicate their lives to only the other as long as they both shall live. Submitting themselves to this great challenge and task before God and other believers. It is not a course of action for cowards or for those who are out to play safe with life. The path of being a parent, especially close to home and poignantly an adoptive parent is also a different walk of love. Laying down your freedoms, your independence, your resources. Time, money, emotional energy, yourself for a little person that is nothing but a bundle of need. It is not a path for those who fear heart and emotional pain.
Love means pain. Love means letting go of our needs. Love means saying goodbye sometimes before we feel it’s time. Love means letting go of the object that we love when it’s time to. Love means letting someone or something else take precedent over ourselves
Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.
I used to think this meant the literal, giving up ones life breath for someone. Like, seeing an accident about to happen and throwing oneself in the way to save another’s physical life. I still think that but now, I think it also means something else. The literal laying aside of our life of preferences, of wishes, of emotional needs to care for someone else. Dying to that inner man of desires and needs. Offering our lives up, our conveniences, our luxuries. I think the latter is a lot harder for me than the former. Deciding to give my life for another in a physical sense in an emergency is easy. A snap decision aided by a chemical cocktail surge headed by adrenaline. Deliberately choosing to give my life up for another is much harder. It’s harder in a marriage. It’s harder as a parent. True love is tough as nails and no path for the selfish.
I think this is why we are taught to pray…Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
When we act or pray in our will it usually is not out of love for another.
Thy will be done
In our hearts
In the life of this baby
In the future marriage of this wonderful couple
Even if we have to let go, and say good-bye
Even if she goes somewhere else
Even if marriage means letting go of someone you’d rather hang onto
Even if it hurts..
A lot.
Thy will be done.
